Aboriginal art is as old as the aboriginal occupation of the Australian continent and as such it is at least 40,000 years old. Apart from commercial considerations, the art of the aboriginal people as been an important means of preserving the beautiful cultural heritage of the Aboriginal people. 

 Indeed, Aboriginal mythology contends that in the the beginning the Ancestral Beings rose from the folds of the earth and stretching up to the scorching sun they called, "I am!" As each Ancestor sang out their name, "I am Snake", "I am Honey Ant", they created the most sacred of their songs. Slowly they began to move across the barren land naming all things and thus bringing them into being. Their words forming verses as the Ancestors walked about, they sang mountains, rivers and deserts into existence. Wherever they went, their songs remained, creating a web of songlines over the Country. As they travelled the Ancestors hunted, ate, made love, sang and danced leaving a trail of Dreaming along the songlines. Finally at the end of their journey the Ancestral Beings sang 'back into' the earth where they can be seen as land formations, sleeping. 

There are many different facets of Aboriginal art, from  painting, sculpture, ceremony and dance, to the making of body ornaments, carved utensils,  body painting, feather work and fibre art and spun or woven articles for everyday use.

All these arts form a living tradition that has been passed down through the generations from the earliest times. This web site will focus primarily on the more well known art forms such as rock art and painting.

 Aboriginal rock art is generally regard as one of the oldest forms of aboriginal art being more than 40,000 years old, a time span five times greater than the age of the Egyptian pyramids.  Rock art gives us descriptive information about social activities, material culture, economy, environmental change, and myth and religion.  

In many case it is often difficult to identify the subject of the painting due to the interpretation of the artist.  In some cases the images can also be distorted from reality due to religious beliefs making it difficult to tell if the subject matter is a real human figure or a mythological being. Interestingly, in the Kimberley region, Aborigines claim that the oldest rock art, the Bradshaw paintings, were made by the birds that pecked the rocks until their beaks bled and painted the images with their tail feathers.  

Painting of a Tasmanian tiger at Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, Australia.
Water has washed away the back of the figure.

The ancestral creators can be found on rock walls from the huge mouthless Wandjina figures of the Kimberley east to the giant Gangi Nganang of Keep River National Park to the large creation figures of the Victoria River. In Western Arnhem, Aborigines distinguish between the oldest rock art known as Mimi Art, younger images of the ancestor beings when they entered the landscape, and more recent pictures created by their people. Aborigines maintain that that the Mimi people inhabited the land before the Rainbow Serpent created the Aborigines. The Mimi people painted small dynamic images, taught the Aborigines how to paint, hunt, sing, dance, and talk, and then became spirit beings.

The worldwide acceptance and the commercial value of Aboriginal art can be appreciated in the context of the following extract from Jane's Oceania Home Page Newsletter dated 5th July 2006.